Gun dogs being targeted by organised gangs

Highly-trained gun dogs used in field sports are being targeted by organised
gangs as part of a lucrative trade in stolen animals.

Salena Masson and her dog

By Jonathan Wynne-Jones

9:00PM GMT 02 Jan 2010

The pedigrees, used by hunters to retrieve game and worth up to £3,000, are sold by thieves on the black market or bred for valuable puppies.

Some owners pay large ransoms to be reunited with their dogs, which are being taken from kennels, parked cars, on shoots and even at knifepoint.

While dognapping is already acknowledged to be a problem, hunting dogs such as labradors and spaniels are now believed to be particularly likely to be snatched and field sports enthusiasts have fallen victim to a spate of thefts over the past year.

Selena Masson, 27, had her three-year-old cocker spaniel, Archie, stolen from a locked car last month. The thieves smashed a window and took a crowbar to the car to get the dog, which is worth around £2,000.

"The thieves are benefiting from all the money and time I've spent on him," she said. "These aren't opportunists. They must have been watching him."

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She said she has been left devastated by the theft of her spaniel, but added that it has alerted her to the growing problem. Miss Masson, a journalist with Shooting Times, said her dog's trainer had five labradors stolen last year.

The thieves stand to earn thousands of pounds if they use the cocker spaniel for breeding, as she estimates the puppies would be worth around £500 each.

The Countryside Alliance believes the rise in thefts of hunting dogs has coincided with a marked increase in the popularity of game shooting in the past few years.

"One of the accoutrements of shooting, along with the wellies and the gun, is the dog," said Tim Bonner of the Alliance.

"The shooting community has become increasingly aware of the problem, which seems to have become more prevalent in the last couple of years."

He said he believed it was no coincidence that the rise in the popularity of the sport, and the subsequent increased demand for gun dogs, has led to the growth of the crime

Jayne Hayes, founder of DogLost, a website which aims to reunite lost dogs with their owners, said the number of animals reported missing to the charity each week has risen from 100 in 2006 to 150 in 2009.

"We've noticed in the last few years more and more dogs are being held for ransom money," she said, adding that working animals are a particularly popular target.

"The thieves realise that the owners will pay more for the dogs than anyone else."

She said she had accompanied one unnamed owner from the Forest of Dean who agreed to pay £500 to be reunited with his stolen dog. He was led off by three men "with Irish accents" who then demanded £1,000.

"He said, 'well what can I do, I don't have that money on me', so he decided the best thing he could do was just grapple with them, grab the dog and make a run for it. He managed to get to his car with the dog and sped off but it took him 30 miles to lose them," Miss Hayes said.

In June last year, 24 animals were stolen in the Forest of Dean area of Gloucestershire within a fortnight.

Owners of the dogs, some family pets and others working animals, faced ransom demands of up to £1,000 to get them back.